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THE ORIGIN OF THE DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY |
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The doctrine of the Trinity is utterly
unique among all the views of God.
How did the Christian Church come to embrace such a unique view of
God? Most Christians assume that the
Church came to understand the triune nature of God by examining the
Scriptures and piecing together the evidence, and while this is partly true,
it is not the whole story. The doctrine of the Trinity, like all
Biblical doctrines, is a revealed doctrine. As we have said, a revealed doctrine is not
discoverable by reason, and must be revealed to us by God if we are to
understand it. We know that God is
triune because He has revealed Himself to us to be triune. Otherwise we would have no way of knowing
this. The triune nature of God was revealed
to us in history. Specifically,
it was revealed in the Incarnation and in the sending of the Holy
Spirit. In the Incarnation (lit. enfleshment),
God clothed Himself in our flesh and lived among us, and the disciples beheld
His glory (John 1:1-18). Before His
death and resurrection Jesus ("God with us", Matt. 1:23) promised
that when He ascended to the throne He would send "another
counselor" who would be with His Church forever (John 14:15-17). This
promise was fulfilled when He poured out the Holy Spirit upon His Church on
the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:29-33). Accordingly, the Son and the Spirit were
each seen to be divine, and they were seen to be distinct from each other and
from the Father (Romans 8:9; John 17). The triune nature of God was revealed
in history just before the writing of the New Testament. The Trinity is hinted at in the Old
Testament, but never fully developed. In the NT the Trinity is never
explained. The NT authors do not explain the doctrine precisely because they assume
it everywhere. They assume it
because they had seen God the Son and had experienced God the Holy Spirit. |
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